This invention relates to a connector in which a contact is prevented from being released from a housing.
A connector of the type is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. H06-215821. The connector comprises an insulating housing having a contact receiving portion and a contact held in the contact receiving portion. The contact is inserted into the contact receiving portion through one end of the housing. Herein, a direction along which the contact is inserted will be called an inserting direction while another direction opposite to the inserting direction will be called a removing direction.
In order to prevent the contact from being released from the housing, the housing is provided with an elastic arm while the contact is provided with a protruding portion protruding outward and engaged with the elastic arm in the removing direction. By engagement between the elastic arm and the protruding portion, the contact is steadily held in the contact receiving portion to be prevented from being released.
However, since the above-mentioned protruding portion protrudes outward, the size of the contact is increased and the contact is inhibited from being stably held in the housing. Further, when the contact is inserted into the contact receiving portion, the protruding portion may excessively deform the elastic arm to destroy the elastic arm. If the contact receiving portion is designed to be greater in size in order to prevent excessive deformation of the elastic arm, the connector is increased in size as a whole.